Re: VTs (was: How to get more developers)
Norbert Nemec <nobbi@cheerful.com>:
> It is userspace - meaning: you have to log in first before you have
> consoles.
That doesn't follow. You could start the console driver from inittab
or whatever.
> It runs on top of VT220 - meaning: Once you send a control sequence that
> screws up the VT220 completely (so that you have to chance to type "reset"
> any more) you are out of luck.
A program like screen runs on top of an existing console driver, but
it doesn't pass through random control sequences; it interprets them
itself then uses something like curses to control the underlying
console driver. So the underlying console driver shouldn't get screwed
up, but even if it does, screen might know how to reset it.
> In my time working on Linux, I have had quite
> a number of consoles screwed up, but I have never ever been in a situation
> that console switching was not possible any more (unless, of course, the
> computer was completely dead)
Probably you have never tried loading your own keymaps. It's trivially
easy to disable a Linux console that way, and you don't even have to
be root. (Something like "echo keycode 16 = CtrlR | loadkeys" then
press 'q', but I can't remember the tedious details of how keymaps
work.)
> I do not believe that one will ever get a single console with userspace VTs
> as reliable as the Linux VTs are.
Probably not, as people would prefer to have more features instead.
I'd like a console driver to let me compose and ask about Unicode
characters, with feedback in a corner of the screen, before sending
the chosen character to the application, for example. It would be nice
to be able to interactively query and modify the keyboard layout, too.
Edmund
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